Despite Augustine’s unassuming personality, she boasts a striking array of interests, activities and accomplishments. She is a standout student in economics, a member of the student advisory committee for the Department of Economics, a longtime Women’s Chorus member, an experienced alto in the Madrigals and recent inductee into the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa academic society. Augustine also volunteered for Nuestras Raices, a tutoring program in Holyoke that involved work in a community garden. “Anne is very dedicated to her work and extracurricular activities. She puts her best into everything she undertakes,” said Karina Zaveri ’08, a former Appleton dorm mate and one of Augustine’s first friends at Amherst.
Intellectual Curiosity Starts at Home
Augustine’s illustrious academic career began early, which she attributes in part to the fact that she grew up with two older siblings. “I felt a lot younger than my sister and brother, so I kept to myself by basically reading and whining a lot,” she recalled with a laugh. She also began taking violin lessons at four years old and continued for 16 years thereafter, including stints in the orchestras at her high school and at the College. Though she had already been involved in instramental music, it was Augustine’s older sister who first encouraged her to begin singing. “My sister told me that she liked the Amherst choir when she heard them at an open house several years before [I matriculated], so I decided to try out for Women’s Chorus,” she said.
Augustine’s “innovative and successful” siblings have played a major role in all aspects of her life. Her brother e-mails her frequently with words of advice and support. Augustine also enjoys spending time on the phone with her 10-year-old sister, who “makes me talk to one of the cats whenever I call home.” With love, encouragement and guidance like this from her siblings, Anne never worried her parents. “My mom and dad were pretty hands-off in terms of pushing me. I had the burden of getting things done—oh, except in the third grade, when my teachers called to say that I never did my homework,” Augustine noted.
Augustine decided to attend the College based on a combination of factors: she liked the physical setting of Amherst, with its beautiful mountains and greenery, and she wanted to be within a 300-mile radius of home so that her parents could drive her belongings to and from school. When she arrived at Amherst in the fall of 2004, straight out of a small all-girls school in Buffalo, N.Y., she was convinced that she would be a political science major. However, during the second semester of her freshman year, she took Economics 11 with Assistant Professor of Economics Sami Alpanda. Any Amherst student knows that Econ 11 is “just one of those classes that you think will be good to take,” and this is certainly the attitude Augustine had toward the course when signing up for it. “But I really liked it,” said Augustine, “and so that’s when I decided to become an economics major.”
It is Augustine’s success in both academics and extracurriculars that sets her apart as an outstanding student at Amherst. Her dedication to different spheres of learning is manifest in her course selections. “Anne has made the best of her liberal arts education, taking classes in a wide spectrum of studies, including chemistry, Russian literature, math, music theory, physics, geology, biology, psychology and history,” commented Zaveri.
A Passion for the ‘Dismal Science’
Still, Augustine’s first love is economics. Her favorite class at the College was Economic History with Professor of Economics Daniel Barbezat. “He is an interesting, amazing teacher. I read economic papers for the first time and learned about topics such as how the Great Depression got started, for which the explanations were very different from those I heard in high school.” During her final year at Amherst, Augustine chose to write a thesis on family firms, focusing on the dynamics between the family who owns the company, the CEOs of the company and outside shareholders. She was inspired by the Institutional Economics and anthropology classes she took at the end of her junior year. “I wrote an economics research paper that was inspired by anthropology readings and then decided that it would be neat to take game theory and look at families or social networks. People usually don’t think that economics deals with these types of things,” explained Augustine.
Her thesis advisor, Assistant Professor of Economics Christopher Kingston, who was her teacher for both Game Theory and Institutional Economics, said of Augustine, “She was very self-motivated and mostly did things on her own.” He recounted a specific example, “For each class in Institutional Economics, I had the students read a research paper and then write a response to it. Anne would often branch off into her own creative interpretations.” Kingston met with Augustine every week to evaluate her progress on her thesis, and unlike many students, she was always calm and never frazzled about her work. “She didn’t freak out about her thesis, and seemed relaxed, reserved and laid back,” Kingston said. “She is an excellent student, while still possessing a nice, go-with-the-flow attitude about life.”
An Involved and Amiable Academic Star
In addition to book smarts, Augustine possesses extraordinary musical talent. Her friends rave about her ability, as does Women’s Chorus director, Mallorie Chernin. “Anne has a great sense of pitch as well as a steady, calming influence,” said Chernin. Smeall added, “Not many people know that Anne is an accomplished classical violin player. When nobody is listening except for me, she plays country fiddle tunes like ‘Soldiers’ Joy’ and ‘Orange Blossom Special.’” During her four years at Amherst, Anne has performed with Women’s Chorus, the Madrigal Singers, Amherst Orchestra, Amherst Choral Society and Catholic mass music ministry—and that doesn’t even include other miscellaneous student-run events for which she has graciously sung or played the violin.
Unsurprisingly, Augustine’s enthusiasm for economics and singing has carried over to her friends. She convinced Zaveri to join Women’s Chorus, and also piqued Smeall’s interest in economics. “Anne intrigued me enough about the subject to make me consider taking an economics class at Amherst,” said Smeall, who bonded with Augustine in the Madrigal Singers group over the alto portion of a Josquin Despres motet. “And this is saying something, since a large part of the reason I enrolled here was so that I’d never again have to take another class which involved any sort of numbers or computation. I guess the look of schoolgirlish glee she gets in her eyes [about economics] is infectious.”
Augustine focuses on her studies and music, but she also enjoys having fun in unconventional ways. “When we were roommates, Anne would frequently begin singing, dancing or making other movements while studying … of course, I was heavily influenced by her amusing habits, and we had a great time that year,” reminisced her sophomore-year roommate, Hyowoun Jung ’08, who has lived on the same floor as Augustine for all four years at Amherst. “She may come across as a quiet person, but once you get to know her, she’s often very animated, wonderfully idealistic and childlike.”
Zaveri spoke at length about Augustine’s fondness for arts and crafts. Besides constructing a “tree” made of construction paper, real dried leaves and magazine-cutout leaves in her dorm room, Augustine has also made collaged door signs, birthday cards and scrapbooks for her friends. The source of her artistic inspiration may be children’s literature, which she enjoys reading for fun, or perhaps it is her love of New England’s natural beauty. “I really like the Amherst campus, so sometimes I wander around late at night when no one is around,” she said. Zaveri, who shares her love for the outdoors, often joins her in exploring the numerous trails that lead off the bike path behind the athletic fields.
Augustine’s lightheartedness is reflected in her witty humor, which Smeall especially appreciates. “We both share an inclination for analytical humor,” he said, laughing as he recalled a particular Augustine anecdote. “She told me she couldn’t possibly take communion in Catholic mass because she was guilty of being a ‘chronic mass-skipper.’ She said she had to utilize the holy sacrament of reconciliation by confessing before she could partake in communion with a clear conscience.”
Described as sharp, entertaining, musical, sweet, modest and fun by her good friends, it’s no wonder that Augustine has experienced so much success at Amherst. “I’ll miss the people here. I’ve had such interesting discussions with them that I’ve never had anywhere else,” she said. “I have seen how students are unafraid to do things like study abroad in a foreign country, which is inspiring to me. I was a little scared of that before, but now, I’m not as afraid.” Zaveri affirmed this, admiring Augustine’s ability to try new things and step out of her comfort zone during her time at the College. “It is an attribute that has definitely allowed her to excel in both her academics and her extracurricular activities,” she said.
Who Knows What the Future Holds?
Despite all of her successes at Amherst, the ever-modest Augustine is quick to point out that she still doesn’t know what she’s going to do after graduation. “I’ve never done summer internships or anything,” she said. Recently, though, she interviewed with insurance company Liberty Mutual’s internal consultant unit. To her chagrin, the eminent business’s office building consisted of “gray walls with no windows.” Said Augustine, “I decided that I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life.”
Her post-graduate options have included everything from traveling the world and doing something adventurous, to going to graduate school (“it’s taken for granted at Amherst that you’ll do this”), to being in foreign service (“what I thought I wanted to do when I first came here”). Explained Augustine, “My plans keep on changing.” With an impressive inventory of Amherst accomplishments under her belt, and a laidback, down to earth and hardworking character, Augustine doesn’t need to lose sleep over figuring out a life plan. In the words of her advisor, Kingston, “Anne is a mover and shaker in a quiet way.”